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by Rebellious Fishermen » Mon Oct 06, 2014 4:52 pm
by Northern Arcadian Empire » Mon Oct 06, 2014 4:55 pm
by Padnak » Mon Oct 06, 2014 4:58 pm
by Yumyumsuppertime » Mon Oct 06, 2014 5:03 pm
Rebellious Fishermen wrote:Yumyumsuppertime wrote:
Yes, but too often, that's all that gets brought to the table.
Sometimes it will happen, but I suspect it mostly does not. There will always be outlier variables. If we were to tally up all state governors right now, I suspect we would have a multitude of above average individuals with many skills leading their respective states.
by Furry Alairia and Algeria » Mon Oct 06, 2014 5:06 pm
Othelos wrote:Then the problem isn't with just democracy, it's with any system of governance run by humans.
by Rebellious Fishermen » Mon Oct 06, 2014 5:09 pm
Yumyumsuppertime wrote:Rebellious Fishermen wrote:
Sometimes it will happen, but I suspect it mostly does not. There will always be outlier variables. If we were to tally up all state governors right now, I suspect we would have a multitude of above average individuals with many skills leading their respective states.
Let's take a look at the past several Presidents, starting in 1970:
Nixon: VERY manipulative and intelligent, not so charming. Multitude of other skills in place. Until resignation, a decent President.
Carter: Charming, not at all manipulative. Despite not being that bad a President, got creamed by....
Reagan: Charm and manipulation in spades. Outsourced intelligence to his advisers. Hugely effective, but his policies continue to have negative repercussions on the economy.
Bush I: Not that charming, left manipulation up to Atwater. Definitely intelligent. Serviceable President, not spectacular, a bit behind the curve on economy.
Clinton: Charm, manipulation, and intelligence. Reagan for the Democrats, with added brains (and, sadly, libido). Enormously effective.
Bush II: Charm, manipulation, and....cunning, I suppose? Rove had all of the smarts. Absolute disaster.
Obama: A certain charm, smarts, hugely ineffective at manipulation. Too soon to state the legacy.
So I'd say that out of the two who had all of the qualities you mentioned, one was excellent for the nation, and the other caused long-term damage but is still seen as a hero by many. Not a convincing argument.
by Atlanticatia » Mon Oct 06, 2014 5:10 pm
by Othelos » Mon Oct 06, 2014 5:11 pm
Atlanticatia wrote:Isn't it better to atleast have many (stupid) people giving their opinions and voting for what they want, than one (stupid) person imposing something on everyone in a dictatorship?
by Atlanticatia » Mon Oct 06, 2014 5:15 pm
Othelos wrote:Atlanticatia wrote:Isn't it better to atleast have many (stupid) people giving their opinions and voting for what they want, than one (stupid) person imposing something on everyone in a dictatorship?
yes, because there is debate, and usually the most fair course of action wins out. Or at least one that isn't ridiculously stupid.
by Furry Alairia and Algeria » Mon Oct 06, 2014 5:17 pm
It's enough that people know there was a election. The people who cast the vote decide nothing. The people that count the votes decide everything" - იოსებ სტალინი
by The Liberated Territories » Mon Oct 06, 2014 5:19 pm
Atlanticatia wrote:Isn't it better to atleast have many (stupid) people giving their opinions and voting for what they want, than one (stupid) person imposing something on everyone in a dictatorship?
by Yumyumsuppertime » Mon Oct 06, 2014 5:35 pm
Rebellious Fishermen wrote:Yumyumsuppertime wrote:
Let's take a look at the past several Presidents, starting in 1970:
Nixon: VERY manipulative and intelligent, not so charming. Multitude of other skills in place. Until resignation, a decent President.
Carter: Charming, not at all manipulative. Despite not being that bad a President, got creamed by....
Reagan: Charm and manipulation in spades. Outsourced intelligence to his advisers. Hugely effective, but his policies continue to have negative repercussions on the economy.
Bush I: Not that charming, left manipulation up to Atwater. Definitely intelligent. Serviceable President, not spectacular, a bit behind the curve on economy.
Clinton: Charm, manipulation, and intelligence. Reagan for the Democrats, with added brains (and, sadly, libido). Enormously effective.
Bush II: Charm, manipulation, and....cunning, I suppose? Rove had all of the smarts. Absolute disaster.
Obama: A certain charm, smarts, hugely ineffective at manipulation. Too soon to state the legacy.
So I'd say that out of the two who had all of the qualities you mentioned, one was excellent for the nation, and the other caused long-term damage but is still seen as a hero by many. Not a convincing argument.
Well that analysis is very subjective. I was limiting charm and manipulation to electability. One cannot get elected without a certain amount of charm and manipulation and to be able to express it in such a way that actually gets them elected and sets them apart from most other people. It takes a unique person to actually get elected, someone that is actually above average compared to most people.
My point is that a common person with common intelligence and common skills cannot or will not get elected. We only end up electing extraordinary people into these position or those that at least pass a certain bar. Sometimes people fall through the cracks, but it's not like all of these politicians are just dumbasses that don't know what they are doing.
EDIT: Besides, I'm assuming you picked out Clinton and Reagan as the two with all qualities. I'd argue they were both good, not just one.
by Atlanticatia » Mon Oct 06, 2014 5:47 pm
The Liberated Territories wrote:Atlanticatia wrote:Isn't it better to atleast have many (stupid) people giving their opinions and voting for what they want, than one (stupid) person imposing something on everyone in a dictatorship?
Voting fails because you have a lot of people pursuing their self interest, and the most popular interest wins with a winner-takes-all type of system. A monarch fails since it gives one person an absurd amount of power that makes it easy to walk all over the majority with their self interest. Neither respect the minority interest unless it benefits them, too.
by Asyir » Mon Oct 06, 2014 5:50 pm
by Yumyumsuppertime » Mon Oct 06, 2014 5:51 pm
Asyir wrote:Interesting OP. I'm kind of stumped.
Democracy does work, but it becomes so clouded that it eventually becomes ineffective as politicians care more about their party, then the overall objective, which would be the US. Eventually, you end up with a deadlocked congress that is too busy fighting over party beliefs, rather then manage the nation. I believe the arrival of massive political parties ruins democracy, and we should've heeded George Washington when he said beware of political parties.
However, I would rather live in a democratic society then say a communist one, or a socialist one.
by Benuty » Mon Oct 06, 2014 5:54 pm
Yumyumsuppertime wrote:Asyir wrote:Interesting OP. I'm kind of stumped.
Democracy does work, but it becomes so clouded that it eventually becomes ineffective as politicians care more about their party, then the overall objective, which would be the US. Eventually, you end up with a deadlocked congress that is too busy fighting over party beliefs, rather then manage the nation. I believe the arrival of massive political parties ruins democracy, and we should've heeded George Washington when he said beware of political parties.
However, I would rather live in a democratic society then say a communist one, or a socialist one.
Actually, a "pure" communist or socialist society would be far more democratic than this one...which is one of the reasons that I'm skeptical regarding communism and socialism.
by Yumyumsuppertime » Mon Oct 06, 2014 5:55 pm
by Shaggai » Mon Oct 06, 2014 5:57 pm
by Benuty » Mon Oct 06, 2014 5:57 pm
by Benuty » Mon Oct 06, 2014 5:59 pm
Shaggai wrote:The problem with democracy is that it optimizes for electability, not being useful. The problem with any system which has only a small group of people deciding who's in power (elective monarchy, some oligarchy, etc.) is that it optimizes for the interests of those deciding, not the general good. The problem with any system which doesn't have people deciding who gets to rule (hereditary monarchy, some oligarchy, etc.) is that it doesn't optimize for anything. Personally, I think that a democratic republic is probably better than most other systems which have been tried. It sacrifices some ability to get things done for the benefits of not doing as much bad stuff. I would infinitely prefer complete deadlock in Congress to, for example, Stalin's purges or the Albigensian Crusade.
by The United Colonies of Earth » Mon Oct 06, 2014 6:00 pm
Yumyumsuppertime wrote:According to a researcher at the University of British Columbia, it doesn't due to the fact that we're generally too stupid as a species to make logical and informed decisions.While electing a mayor or prime minister can often be a head-scratching process, a provocative new thesis from the University of British Columbia suggests our brains may not be cut out for the political system we’ve created.
We may, in fact, be too dumb for democracy.
David Moscrop, a Ph.D political science candidate at UBC, points out that modern democracy was built on the idea that citizens are rational and autonomous.
But he says voters across the political spectrum are more likely to vote with instinct than reason.
“We’re motivated by our so-called 'lizard brains,'” says Moscrop.
He says the voting public isn't encouraged to wade through political platforms to make informed decisions.
“It’s about messaging and name familiarity. And it reflects our own vulnerability to being manipulated -- which is why attack ads work and sound bites work.”
The “lizard brain” is a catch-all term for the areas of our brain that developed between 500 million and 150 million years ago and are primarily responsible for instinct, emotion and recording memories, as well as visceral feelings that influence or even direct our decisions.
The neocortex, on the other hand, is the area of our brain responsible for reason, language, imagination, abstract thought and consciousness. Scientists say the neocortex has only been around for two or three million years.
When it comes to understanding the workings of the human brain, it's worth remembering that only a small percentage of our active brain is conscious.
It is impossible to quantify, but scientists say roughly 95 per cent of our brain activity is subconscious or unconscious.
“It is flawed to think that we’re fully in control,” says Tanya Chartrand, professor of neuroscience and psychology at Duke University.
“We don’t have the mental capacity to process everything in our environment with conscious awareness and intent, so we pay attention to a small percentage of the environment at any given time. But in the background, we’re non-consciously processing much, much more. And non-conscious processing later influences the decisions we make.”
Chartrand points to a famous study published in 1996, in which psychologist John Bargh and his team at New York University assigned research subjects the task of reworking sentences.
The subjects working with words associated with the elderly – words such as "retirement" and "Florida" – left the research lab walking more slowly than their counterparts who were given neutral words.
Psychologists refer to this effect as "priming," and this experiment is just one of many that demonstrates our susceptibility to suggestion.
Political preferences are pre-formed
“You would think that for high-involvement situations, like deciding on who to vote for, we should be creating spreadsheets of pros and cons and deliberately considering the pros and cons of candidates’ platforms,” says Chartrand.
But the truth is, most of us don’t.
Moscrop says that election campaigns are run on a presumption that voters’ political preferences are already formed.
A campaign, then, isn’t really about engaging citizens in a rigorous exchange of transformative ideas, but rather reaffirming people’s existing ideological biases and mobilizing citizens to vote for their respective camp.
If the goal of democracy is to engage in a rigorous exchange of ideas that results in a greater good for all citizens, one of the first things to do is downplay the role of television ads during election campaigns, says University of Toronto philosophy professor Joseph Heath.
“Reason resides in language and our ability to explicitly articulate how we get from point A to point B in an argument,” says Heath.
“If you’re trying to communicate through visual stimulation, it won’t encourage a rational appreciation of things, and that has a bunch of implications. Reason is very, very slow. Speed encourages gut reactions.”
Heath also thinks it would be a good idea to get rid of cameras in the House of Commons.
“The way we organize Question Period in Canada is ridiculous,” he says. He believes providing MPs with questions in advance of Question Period, for example, would foster a reasoned exchange of ideas.
Right now, he says, “It’s gotcha moments -- questions are not provided in advance. The goal is to catch the minister unaware. And that degrades Canadian political discourse.”
In his recent book, Enlightenment 2.0: Restoring Sanity to Our Politics, Our Economy, and Our Lives, Heath argues for a re-think of the expectations we have of individual citizens as well as the democratic structures we operate in.
“We’ve tended to think of human rationality as something located deep inside our brains. Whereas new psychological research shows that rationality is achieved through collaboration with people in groups and in a particular environment,” says Heath.
Heath says that the political system should be conceived with our cognitive limitations in mind. He puts an emphasis on design. Two-year-olds can figure out how to operate an iPad, for example, because it is designed in a way that plays on human instinct.
“I would love to see a discussion about social institutions that could be built to better suit the way we operate,” he says.
David Moscrop, who's working on his PhD in political science at UBC, says that if we acknowledge our mental limitations, we can design a democracy that takes into account our cognitive flaws.
Moscrop is a strong supporter of the idea of “deliberative” democracy, providing resources and incentives to citizens from all political stripes so that they can gather to discuss and advise on policy, using the results to influence politicians and also educate other citizens.
Such a practice, Moscrop hopes, would build civic engagement better than the current game of party politics, with its narrow focus on the ballot box.
He believes that if we acknowledge our mental limitations, we can design a democracy that takes into account our cognitive flaws.
“You change the structure, and the way things operate is going to change. But at the moment, the incentives are all there to do things at a base level.”
TL;DR: As a species, we're too reliant on instinct, too suggestible, and too controlled by unconscious reasoning to make conscious and infomed decisions, and the way that the political system and the media work with each other tends to reinforce this, leading to decisions being made with a lack of objectivity or clear information.
I see the problem, but frankly, i'm stumped when it comes to the alternative, since I don't trust any government where the people don't have the final say. It's the old quote attributed to Churchill, that democracy is the worst system on Earth...except for all of the other ones. This topic seems tailor made for NSG, so I'd like to hear from everyone what their thoughts are on this subject.
Oh, and just to get the obvious reference out of the way....
by Shaggai » Mon Oct 06, 2014 6:02 pm
Benuty wrote:Shaggai wrote:The problem with democracy is that it optimizes for electability, not being useful. The problem with any system which has only a small group of people deciding who's in power (elective monarchy, some oligarchy, etc.) is that it optimizes for the interests of those deciding, not the general good. The problem with any system which doesn't have people deciding who gets to rule (hereditary monarchy, some oligarchy, etc.) is that it doesn't optimize for anything. Personally, I think that a democratic republic is probably better than most other systems which have been tried. It sacrifices some ability to get things done for the benefits of not doing as much bad stuff. I would infinitely prefer complete deadlock in Congress to, for example, Stalin's purges or the Albigensian Crusade.
No thanks I'd prefer the Do-Nothing congress of 1948 to the really unable to do shit congress of now.
by Ethel mermania » Mon Oct 06, 2014 6:05 pm
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